


Still Here?

by Eclissy



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I'm also messing around with characters right now, there's slight undyne/alphys but that's not the main focus, trying to figure things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4991212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eclissy/pseuds/Eclissy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-True Pacifist End, Papyrus and Sans are settling into their new life on the surface comfortably. In fact, the sun’s rays seemed to have changed Papyrus’ brother into a motivated young skelly. Surprisingly enough, Papyrus finds that it’s too much of a change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Here?

The human in the spiffy suit had visited Papyrus and his brother again the night before. He was assigned to help the brothers integrate into the surface’s society by a human in a spiffier suit. This session involved showing them what taxes were.

Sans wandered off to not pick up his socks, of course, and that left Papyrus to ‘hrmmm’ and softly ‘nyeh heh heh’ at the increasingly worried human.

As they went through the list of things that the skeletons had to pay for and why, Papyus’ jaw slowly dropped wider and wider. By the time the flustered human finished, they were sure they could easily step into Papyrus’ mouth.

“All of this?” Papyrus had exclaimed loudly, causing the human to shield themselves with their folders. “All of this and no snowball tax?” He sucked in a huge gulp of air. “Frisk was right! The surface world is amazing!“

The revelation had left the skeleton so excited that after the human had left with a stomach stuffed to the brim with the wonderful small white spaghetti noodles Papyrus discovered at the store, he didn’t sleep a wink.

For hours, Papyrus rolled in bed, thinking about all of the snowballs he didn’t have to pay for.

In his excitement, however, he forgot to set his alarm and ended up shooting out of his racecar bed at 9AM.

“Everyone’s coming over for lunch at noon!” Papyrus pressed his hands against the sides of his skull in panic. “There’s only three hours to cook and clean!” He meant that he would prepare a meal for five and clean the kitchen after which really didn’t require even half of that time but that’s measuring it by regular people standards. Papyrus people standards needed twice that to compensate for the massive collateral damage.

Throwing his clothes on inside out and upside down, Papyrus burst out of his room and resolved to tackle this disaster with all he had. Speeding down the hall and zooming into the kitchen as fast as his skelly legs could take him, Papyrus skidded to a stop right next to the dining table decorated with numerous plates of nutritious breakfast foods.

“I’ve heard of a so called tooth fairy sneaking into houses and robbing children of their teeth but a breakfast fairy? I’ve never heard of one!” Papyrus said, gaping at the spread of pancakes and omelets and love. “Why is it always the ‘bad’ types that get popular?”

“Does that make me a celebrity?”

Papyrus stiffened, letting his eye sockets stray to the end of the table where Sans sat.

“Cause I’m pretty bad,” He shrugged. “Bad to the bone.”

“Sans?!” Papyrus gasped. “You were the tooth fairy the entire time? And you met the breakfast fairy? What did you do to them?!”

“Eh, I’m not that bad. Have some of an omelet and find out,” Sans said as he grabbed a squeeze bottle, writing something on one of the omelets before pushing the plate towards his brother. “But I’m still pretty bad.”

“S-Sleepy Bones?” Papyrus read out loud, shaking with indignant anger. “That accusation fills me with fury!” He said as he stabbed a fork into the omelet and took a bite. “See? Even if it’s delicious, I am still mad! But…my surprise beats my mad.” Taking a scan of the room, Papyrus realized that the rest of the room was spotless. Even the floor had an attractive sheen to it. “Sans! You never wake up this early, let alone clean…at all. What’s the occasion?”

Sans shifted in his seat but his lazy smile remained unchanged.

“The occasion? Well, I called everyone and asked if everyone could come early for breakfast,” Sans smile grew slightly wider. “Looks like you’re dressed for that occasion.”

Looking down at his chaotic attire, Papyrus let out a panicked “GAH!” and sped back to his room to straighten himself out.

It figures, the only time Sans would get his lazy bones working was to get a chance to make fun of him. That soured Papyrus’ mood and he only got one “nyeh heh” at the word play he thought up.

The moment he finished and rejoined his brother in the kitchen, they heard five cheerful raps on the door and Papyrus rushed to the door to let his friends in.

Undyne and Alphys walked in with Frisk right behind them. Catching sight of the table of food, Alphys let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh thank god.” Alphys said and Undyne grabbed Papryus by the shoulders, shaking him back and forth violently.

“How did you learn to cook all of this so fast?” Undyne demanded. “You need to teach me how! Was it your human helper that taught you? Was I just not punching the ingredients hard enough? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“FuUuNny sToOory!” Papyrus tried to speak with Undyne’s rough handling scrambling his thoughts. She had starting to lift him off of the ground. “IiiIt wAAaas SaAans!”

“Sans!” Undyne dropped Papyrus and headed over to the chair next to Sans. “You gotta tell me how to train hard enough to punch food into looking this good!”

“Undyne,” Alphys began, taking a seat next to Undyne with Frisk taking the other chair beside Sans. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Have some eggs and  _maybe_ we’ll talk. After all, eggs are great.” Sans replied to the more-hot-blooded-than-usual fish lady. “They’re the cheapest kind of bone-less chicken.”

“Ah…I don’t think you can call an egg a chicken that early,” Alyphys said, tentatively cutting out a piece of a pancake. Warily examining the fluffy and steaming chunk she had on her fork, the doctor wondered if it was really safe. She didn’t know Sans all too well yet but his laziness, from what she heard from Undyne, was legendary.

“It smells wonderful but how can anyone cook without a tongue?” She muttered and Undyne leaned over to eat the bit of Alphys’ pancake.

“Tastes good to me!” Undyne declared as Alphys’ cheeks began to redden. Hurriedly, the doctor tore off a piece of omelet and offered it to Undyne.

“H-how about this?” Alphys asked eagerly and Undyne went in for another bite.

“Hrmmm.” Papyrus rubbed his chin and looked back over to his brother. His hands were stuffed in his pockets but Frisk’s food was already cut up into uniform pieces for him and the child was happily digging in.

Perhaps a particularly blue moon inspired Sans to get his bones moving. Ah, too bad there couldn’t be a blue moon every night. Sans really had a thing for blue or maybe he just didn’t bother to change out of his clothes ever but that’s beside the point.

Papyrus sat next to Frisk and the friends enjoyed a morning of good food, bad jokes, and Undyne lifting Alphys over her head to prove that a full stomach didn’t hinder her strength.

Once every bit of breakfast had been heartily eaten, Papyrus shooed his house guests into the living room. Guests were for fun and small talk! Not for cleaning!

Turning around, Papyrus found the table completely clean with all the settings in place. Sans was still sitting in the chair with his usual expression even as his brother’s jaw flew open again.

“What in the world? Did you throw all the plates out the window?” Papyrus asked, unable to come up with any other explanation for the disappearance of the mess. “That’s how you clean up the garbage, not the kitchen!”

“Don’t sweat it, bro,” Sans said, slipping out of the chair. “Not like either of us can actually sweat but we’re heading to the beach, right? Why not head there fast?”

Sans seemingly teleporting from place to place didn’t phase Papyrus. That was what he always did but the Sans Papyrus was used to never teleported things from place to right place.

“If I open the cupboards, am I going to be assaulted by an avalanche of ketchup?” Papyrus frowned, still suspicious. “That wasn’t even fun the first time!”

“I remember it a lot differently from you.”

“That’s because you drown yourself in ketchup all the time!”

“Done already?” Undyne poked her head into the kitchen when she heard the skeleton brothers’ exchange. “Good hustle! Now let’s get hustling out of here!”

Before Papyrus could get another word in, he and everyone else were pushed out of the house and into Alphys’ van; the one she had immediately bought when she saw the picture of the pink haired knight decorating its doors.

Undyne did the extreme driving all the way to the beach and despite the jostling and blood curling screams, Papyrus could not stop obsessing over his brother’s sudden strange behavior.

“You can uncross your arms anytime, bro,” Sans mentioned, helping Frisk tighten his seatbelt so he wouldn’t go shooting out of the front window. “You do that when you’re mad and you can’t be mad about going to the beach.”

“Hmmm, I suppose. Being mad about sun, sand, and the giant salt lake doesn’t make sense.” Right at that moment, the Van came to a screeching stop.

With the beach in sight, Papyrus forgot about the weirdness of the morning and charged out with the rest of his friends to the shore.

The Lesser Dog was there again, annoying Papyrus and making more sand sculptures but it was still fun. Undyne outraced a human on a jet-ski while swimming with Alphys clinging to her back. He and Frisk made a sand fortress and Papyrus declared it a gorgeous work of art even when Sans’ attempt at architecture dwarfed theirs and could have made Britain’s royal palace blush with jealousy.

All of the fun made the hours zip by and before Papyrus knew it, he and his friends were in the van on their way home with stomachs filled with Nice Cream. Undyne and Alphys dropped Papyrus and Sans off first and the former enthusiastically waved goodbye to his friends as they drove away to drop Frisk off at Toriel’s.

“Boy, that was fun but I’m beat,” Papyrus stretched, stepping back into his house. “The good kind of beat. Upbeat! Too bad every day can’t be this fun but you can’t skip chore day,” Papyrus raised his finger, talking about what he did every other day. “Well, I can’t skip it. What’s chore day for you?”

“Tomorrow, hopefully.” Sans replied, starting up the stairs.

“Just another day for not picking up your socks?” Papyrus asked, climbing up after him. “In any case, it’s time to rest our weary bones for the night. Have a good sleep, Sans. I’ll watch you slide out of your room tomorrow afternoon.” He bid his brother good night, opening the door to his room.

“G’night bro.” Sans replied and Papyrus didn’t notice that Sans wasn’t on his way to bed.

The next morning, Papyrus watched the sun’s rays leaking into his room and prepared for another beautiful sunlit, but busy, day.

Taking one step out into the hallway, Papyrus realized that something was terribly wrong.

His bare foot was on the carpeted floor but it didn’t feel crunchy. There were no dirt specks, no chip crumbs, nothing. Suspicious, he turned to a window and dragged a skeletal finger over the glass. It was still moist with water and Windex.

“There’s a cleaning fairy too?” Papyrus shouted, quickly heading down the stairs to see what other charitable bug people had worked their magic on his house.  

His first stop was the kitchen and through some great alignment of the planets, Papyrus found Sans sitting at the table yet again. This time, plates of waffles and scrambled eggs were arranged on the tablecloth along with bottles of condiments. Sans’ waffle had a dollop of ketchup of course.

This time, Papyrus wasn’t even mad at the whip cream on one of the waffles spelling out “Sleepy Bones” again. He could take one day of miracles but having two in a row was going to use up all of the miracles he was going to ever get in his skeletal life!

“I admit that this is a grand way to start any morning but my head isn’t empty!” Papyrus paused, hands on his hips. “Well, it is literally empty but oh you’re getting me off topic again! Where did you manage to get all of this food? How did you manage to not slather them with slime and hot dogs either?” He asked, further getting off topic.

“I talk to Toriel from time to time at the store and if I’m already there, might as well.” Sans replied just as someone knocked on the door.

Befuzzled, Papyrus answered the knocking. Undyne, Alphys, and Frisk were waiting outside yet again.

“Oh-oh my god!” Papyrus freaked, mortified with himself. “I thought our next play day was next week! Has it been a week? Did I sleep an entire week? Wait, does that mean I’m actually Sans?” He looked down at his hands. “But my bones are still bigger!”

“Nah, you’re still good ol Papyrus!” Undyne gave his back a big pat and it felt like his spine almost splintered.

“Wow! Another big breakfast!” Alphys stepped into the house, stepping over to the table again. Frisk was already in the seat next to Sans. “Not that I’m complaining about all of this cooking but this must cost a lot! And you keep sharing it with us,” Alphys pressed her fingers together, embarrassed. “We can’t let you keep doing that. Let’s pool in money next time.”

“Money? Wait, that’s right!” Papyrus shouted, the epiphany hitting him in his non-existent gut. “Where is all the money for the food coming from?”

“Where else would you get money?” Sans smile took a more mischievous angle.

Papyrus gasped.

“You charmed a poor old granny into giving you money?”

“No.”

“You found all of this at the beach?”

“No.”

“A hole in the sky opened up and dropped a ton of gold?”

“No.”

“Then where else?” Papyrus asked, completely running out of ideas.

“Well, we’re on the surface now. I can’t exactly scrape by on jobs that I don’t have anymore, right?” Sans winked.

“Amazing! You found a new job!” Papyrus said, half irked that Sans was still slacking and half proud that his brother actually found himself a job to slack off on. “But I never saw you leave the house!”

“The work I found hired me right away cause you see—“ Sans shrugged. “—I look like I was made for the graveyard shift.”

“UGH! That…that sounds smart.” Papyrus admitted, sitting down at the table.

Maybe this was a good time to concede that Sans had decided to make some good changes. Was it the surface that changed him? That was definitely not out of the question. A place where a sun rose every day would get anyone moving to shine just as brightly.

“So, what’s on the list today?” Undyne asked, having eaten through two stacks of waffles with one bite.

“Yesterday, me and Frisk heard about an amusement park opening,” Sans said. “The kid seemed excited so why not?” Frisk touched Sans’ arm then, looking up at him. “It’ll be fun. You wanna have fun, right?” Sans answered Frisk’s wordless question.

“You mean the big park with all of those giant machines?” Undyne asked, slapping her hands on the table and making some of the plates jump. “I wanted to see if I could lift some!”

“They aren’t for lifting…and I guess they aren’t for taking apart either, “Alphys blushed. “But riding some of those coasters like you’re supposed to…oh it’s a teeny bit scary.”

“That won’t be a problem as long as you’re with me!” Undyne boasted and the rest of the morning flew by.

The group drove over to the amusement park and had a blast of a time. Papyrus carried Frisk around on his shoulders as they sped from one ride to the next. It was a bit of a hassle to get through the crowd of people following Undyne around as she drove herself to beat every park game and win Alphys all of the toys but the cheering was fun. So was trying to figure out all those buttons that the ride supervisors played with. It was too bad Frisk dragged him away from those; being so close to figuring out the solutions would eat at the skeleton for a while.

But yet again, the day ended and Papyrus and his brother came back home.

“Good night, dear brother of mine!” Papyrus waved to Sans, happily exhausted as he headed back for his room. Sans was heading for the front door. “Oh, is it your job?”

“You bet. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Alright then…Reward yourself with some good sleep tomorrow!” Papyrus said, jolly. How hardworking his brother had become! It was a delight to see.

“Yeah, same to you sleepy bones.” Sans replied, closing the front door behind him.

Papyrus wasn’t that delighted anymore.

By the morning, all of that turned into delight yet again when Papyrus came downstairs for another round of delicious breakfast foods. This time, the rest of his friends had arrived early. Sans sat at the table, as the new usual, and Frisk was draping a small blanket on his lap.

“Hey, don’t worry about me. Just have a good time.” Sans insisted to the child but Frisk kept tucking the blanket around him anyway.

That didn’t pique Papryus’ interest too much and they all headed to a big shopping city for the rest of the day.  Night arrived all too soon after and he bid his brother a safe night as he went off to work.

And this repeated every day for a while with their tight knit group heading to a new venue each outing. Slowly, Papyrus began to see some differences with Sans.

His brother had always loved to sleep the day away, whether it was on the job, on the couch, or even right on his feet. But lately, Papyrus hadn’t seen Sans going back to his room let alone sleeping.

“Thanks, kid.” Sans once said when Frisk walked up to him and let the skeleton lean on him for a while. It struck Papyrus as slightly odd. Very adorable but still, odd.

Papyrus did wonder if he was seeing things that weren’t there. He didn’t have eyes after all, so it was best to be careful.

Those doubts were then cast aside when Alphys struck up a conversation with him while they were all playing at a bowling alley.

“Erm, sorry if this sounds a bit rude but—“ Alphys began, pausing to watch Undyne throw one of the bowling balls over her head and into the pins. It was her third full strike. Somewhere to the side, a child screamed. “It’s just that Sans isn’t joining in. He’s just sitting and watching. I feel bad about dragging him out if he’s tired.”

Glancing at the chairs by the bowling terminal, Papyrus watched Frisk try to drape another jacket over Sans as the skeleton tried to catch himself every time his chin started to droop.

“Hrrrmmmm, usually that’s just how he is. Sans likes to sit back and roll around in his hot dogs and slime unless he’s thinking of a prank,” Papyrus ‘hrmmm’-ed harder. “But lately, I feel like the hot slime dog brother. He’s been working a spooky night job and I haven’t even started on the ones I’ve signed up for yet.”

“Is it just one job?” Alphys asked.

“What? I think so? I think it’s just one.” Papyrus’ expression scrunched up as much as a person without a face could scrunch it up.

“With all of the food and things he’s been treating us too, I thought he would have to hold down three jobs at the least.”

“That would mean he would have to work all night and  _then_ clean the house!”

“Oh!” Alphys began to sweat at Papyrus’ sudden loud proclamation. She had grown used to Undyne’s but she didn’t know her skeleton friend all that well yet. “Well I don’t know. Maybe you could ask him?”

Ask Sans why he was working so much? What if he took that as a cue to start slacking again? Papyrus really liked this new productive side of Sans but then again overworking was just as bad as underworking. Actually, it was worse. There was a better chance of getting hurt overworking and the last thing Papyrus ever wanted was his brother hurt in any way.

“You know, when I was still the royal scientist, I used to take a bunch of assignments at the same time or some really hard ones,” Alphys explained. “It wasn’t because I really really needed them to be done myself but um…Agore needed it. Well, I’m not Sans but it could maybe probably possibly be the case? Likely that could be it?”

What a strange idea. Sans could be worried? Worried over what? They were on the surface; facing noting but a long road of good things. There was no need to rush and there was no one to worry about besides Papyrus and the others.

And after all everyone had been through, was there honestly anything that could ruin it all now?

“Hrmm, I’ll think about how to tackle this.” Papyrus said.

“Did someone say tackle?” Undyne yelled. “Papyrus, it’s your turn! Tackle it!” She threw a bowling ball at Papryus and it grazed the top of Alphys’ head as it flew. The ball hit Papyrus square in the chest and though he had caught it, he would have died from massive internal bleeding if he actually had any blood to bleed.

For Papyrus, the rest of the game slowly slogged by. It would have been fun and he could have possibly won the match against Alphys and Undyne with Frisk as his partner but he kept looking over his shoulder.

Sans was standing back, with the extra jacket Frisk draped over his shoulders. Looking at his watch, Sans waved at the four and headed out of the bowling alley, heading to work. Papyrus turned back to the game but he was already lost.

At the end of the game, Alphys went to high five Undyne but she was lifted and spun around the room instead. Papyrus watched the happy couple, crestfallen and unable to come up with anything to say to Sans.

Then, he felt Frist hug his leg. Looking down with a warm feeling in his ribcage, Papyrus knelt and hugged Frisk back.

“I, the great Papyrus, have come up with the best method of tackling this puzzle. It comes only second to this kind of tackling,” Papyrus laughed as Frisk squeezed their small arms around his neck. “And you, my very cool best friend, helped of course.”

Frisk pulled their head back and smiled at Papyrus, their mouth twitching a bit. The large skeleton wondered if something was wrong until the child opened their mouth in a wide yawn.

“Nyeh hehe, about time to get tossed into bed?”

“Did someone say toss?” Undyne asked.

“Wait, no!”

After a rowdy conversation and drive home, Papyrus was back in his room. His racecar bed had been neatly made in the morning and though he was dying to mess the sheets up, he sat on its side.

It was fairly recently that Papyrus had taken to sleeping. The newfound peace had helped him relax and in all honesty, he had realized what Sans saw in seven hour night naps around the time Sans gave up on them.

Passing the time by reading some of the picture books Alphys and Undyne had lent him, Papyrus waited. The hours ticked on and the burn of sleepiness was making it hard to keep his eye sockets open. After such sweet rest, it was so difficult to stay up.

Finally, Papyrus heard the door open and he tip toed out of his room to find that the lights downstairs had been turned on. Keeping his steps soft, Papyrus walked down towards the living room. There, Sans was sitting on the end of the couch, facing the tv. He was taking a break before starting on the chores, by the looks of it.

Papyrus, more nervous about talking to his brother than he should have been, walked around the couch and took a seat next to Sans.

His pelvis sank into the sofa and the cushion let out one long drawn out fart.

“Sans! I was trying to be serious!” The rosy hue in Papyruses cheek bones grew more intense as the noise tapered off into a squealy squeak.

“Hehehe,” Sans laughed, sitting up with his back straight. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lighten up the mood.”

“…No. No there really isn’t anything wrong with light moods,” Papyrus nodded and for a moment, Sans eyes squinted. He had been thrown off by his brother’s agreement. “There should be more of them.”

“Not having a good time bro?”

“No, I am having a very good time. The best of times buuut—“ Papyrus raised his finger. “They would be even best-er if I knew that you were having a good time.”

“Aw come on, bro. I’m always having a good time.” Sans looked up at Papyrus but it was noticeable that he was struggling to keep from falling back. “Besides, I used to work a bunch of jobs all the time and I was fine.”

“But you aren’t fine now,” Papyrus argued. “I know you aren’t fine and I know exactly why!”

“No you don’t.” Sans answered right away.

“You are completely right! I have no idea why you’re suddenly working yourself down to barer bones but it needs to be toned down. You’ve been working more than one night job, correct?”

“…Yeah.” Sans replied, digging his hands into his jacket pockets.

“And you’ve been cleaning the house after work  _and then_ making breakfast?”

“…Yeah.”

“I bet you’ve been breaking into Alphys and Undyne’s home to clean up too.”

“…Yeah.”

“Oh my god, Sans!” Papyrus sputtered. “That was a joke! You can’t just break into people’s houses! Not even to fold their underwear! In fact, the worst types of jail are for underwear folders!”

“Heh…” Sans trailed off, letting his gaze dart down to his shoes momentarily. “Missed that one by a mile and a half. Yeah, it’s probably getting to me.”

“What’s getting to you? I don’t understand.” Papyrus said, exasperated to the nth degree. He had thrown his arms into the air and that movement shifted him enough to squeeze the last bit of air out of the whoopie cushion. It bubbled and Sans’ laughed a little, his eyes closing.

All of a sudden, Sans forced them to snap wide awake. He almost fell on to the carpet when he looked from one end of the room to the other before settling his gaze on Papyrus.

The disjointed action startled Papyrus into coming to a conclusion.

“I see! Now I see it!” Papyrus exclaimed, rubbing his chin smugly. “Doing all of this is just to keep you awake! Yes! The surface world is a wondrous place, especially now that I’m in it! You don’t want to miss a thing!”

“Uh…Sort of.” Sans admitted, trying not to look bleary eyed. Papyrus said some of the right things, he’d grant his brother that.

“The puzzle was simpler than I thought! Phew! I’ve never jumped to solving a puzzle before knowing what it was before.” Papyrus sighed, relieved.

“Huh…” Sans trailed off, breathing easier with the feel of the  _new_ couch under his hands. How long that was gonna last, he could never tell. “Haven’t heard that kind of thinking outside the box. What were you going to if you uh didn’t figure it out?”

Sans had no time to react. His brother had captured him in a big mushy hug.

“Woah hey! If you’re squeezing me to make me spill my guts, that’s too bad. I don’t have guts.” Sans joked to hide how perplexed he was at the sudden show of affection.

“No, I do not want excessive gore all over the carpet!” Papyrus pulled back from the hug but he didn’t remove his hands from Sans’ shoulders. “I just wanted to say that whatever happens or whatever’s bothering you, I, the Great Papyrus and your brother, am here for you!”

This was something Sans would have said ‘yeah, I know’ to but he saw a glimmer in Papyrus’ eye…socket. It was sheer and unyielding determination.

“That was an unspoken promise before but now it is spoken!” Papyrus declared and for once, his words shook Sans into letting his smile fall into an overwhelmed flat line.

“See? I can make you go all serious sometimes too. Go ahead and rest for a while! Take a break!” Papyrus continued. “We have so much time now. There’s no need to rush and rush to get us all together. In fact, you should quit some of your jobs.”

“So you  _are_ fine with me snoozing around.”

“No. No no no, don’t go back to the slime pit. Doing things is good for you,” Papyrus interrupted, raising his hands in front of his ribs. “But doing too many things is terrible for you! And you don’t even need to! I’m here. So is Undyne, Alphys, even Frisk! We aren’t made of baby bones! Frisk still might have baby teeth but those are only sort of bones. There’s no need for you to do everything!”

“Heh..” Despite himself and everything around him, Sans felt himself relaxing. “I just wanted to be prepared, you know. It’s hard to be prepared for…stuff when my eyes are closed.”

“The only thing you miss at night is a few more hours of the moon and stars, and some bad tv shows,” Papyrus leered at the tv. “Bad  _bad_ tv shows. So! No more unreasonable night jobs! If they don’t let you go, I’ll burst in, fall on my back, and kick and cry until they let you go!”

“That…I want to see that.”

“Please, no,” Papyrus plead. “That’ll be a last resort. Please be nice about telling your bosses that you’re quitting.”

“Hehehehe…” Sans laughed, beginning to tip forward as a black curtain began to fall over his vision. He quickly straightened and stiffened up again.

“Sans, go ahead and sleep,” Papyrus said, gently tugging on Sans’ coat to lay him back against the sofa. “I’ve been dying to do the chores for a while now! But don’t worry, I won’t leave. I’ll be right here when you wake up!”

Sans knew what he wanted to say and he knew that there wasn’t a point to it. Anything said could be completely lost the moment he wakes up. Thing was, he could have told himself that words didn’t matter but that’d be the same as saying that Papyrus’ words didn’t matter.

He could never say that.

“Do you promise?” Sans asked, straining to keep his eyes from closing completely.

“Promise?”

“Promise that you’ll be here when I wake up?” The mischievous angle returned to Sans’ weary smile and Papyrus had to smile back.

“Of course! Without fail, the moment you wake up, I will be right beside you. I promise!”

Laughing quietly once more, Sans let his breath slow and his head bow forward. Vaguely, he felt Papyrus tilt his head back to rest it against the cushion as he fell into a deep sleep.  

With his consciousness fading into the warm dark, he found that waking up anywhere wouldn’t be too bad. Papyrus made the promise after all, not him.

**Author's Note:**

> It was a really good idea starting out but I feel like I ended up rushing in the end. Probably because I can feel my exams sneaking up on me. I could always fix it up later but shouldn't I have waited until I fixed it up before posting it? Well, I'm not very determined is what I'm trying to say.
> 
> Anyways, I'd like to think that Sans in the True Pacifist ending knows that it all could be rest at anytime. He tried not to care about it but thinking about waking up to his home in Snowdin was real crappy. At least by staying up all the time, he can see the reset coming. And if he's going to be up, might as well do something to help everyone have a good time since it's probably not going to last.


End file.
